DOES YOUR FAMILY NAME MEAN CHERRY BRANDY?

We are studying the genealogy of Polish and Russian
immigrants to the United States, whose surnames
mean, are derived from, or sound like surnames meaning cherry
or cherry brandy or liquor, in an effort to
find the descendants of cousins and siblings of
Lazarus Vishnick, whose page on our website is
here. We know that he had a nephew
who spelled the family name Wyshniak, and that
the consistent transliteration of people's surnames upon immigration
was varied, and not considered all that important
back in the 1800's and early 1900's, when the sound
of the name was more important than how it was spelled.

In many cases, the translation of the surname as
rendered on the passenger lists by officials, at
ports such as Ellis Island, is what
became the family name. In other cases, the spelling
of the family
name was changed on a child's birth certificate,
and that new spelling became the legal family name.
In other cases, people used a different surname
throughout their lifetimes, without ever changing
their name legally, so a genealogist hunting for
them would need to know both surnames, in order
to locate various records. An interesting discussion
of how this applies to researching Polish records for Russian Polish surnames
is at http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/pl-sname.html.

With regards to the meaning of the name, I've heard that vishnick means cherry, and vishnicki means cherry brandy, although other family members have said vishnick means brandy as well.
But, it seems the meanings are all similar, however you spell the
surname, and whether you ask someone who knows Polish, Russian, or Yiddish.
If you want to read more about the meaning of these surnames,
and see the best webpages we found on this topic, when searching for definitions
on the web, then click here.

With regards to the genealogy of this surname group, our immediate personal interest is in families from Makow,
which is near Warsaw, but we are entertaining the
theory that all, or most all, of the families with
related surnames are descended from one patriarch,
whose descendants spread out over Russia, Poland,
and other parts of Europe, creating the distinct
ancestral groups we know of today.

Most of the current families in this group which
are located in the United States are from Russia,
apparently the Ukraine, and their ancestors immigrated
in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Most lived
in New York, but there are other distinct clusters early
on, especially in Minnesota, New Jersey, and Illinois.

There are a significant number of families in this
group who came from Germany or who went to the United Kingdom, as well. Our cousins
in this group who are currently in England, are descendants of
Lazarus Vishnick's youngest son, Joseph Vishnick,
who was born in 1891 in Makowa, Poland.

One of the most annoying challenges we face as researchers
of this family of surnames, is the astounding number
of ways that the surname can be spelled, and the
total inability of Soundex and Metaphone systems to
find all related spellings successfully.

These systems seem to
be based on an English rendition of consonants,
without allowing for the possibility that many consonant
combinations also belong in the list of matches
which, unfortunately, do not appear. This means
that if, for example, you search for Wishnick at
Ancestry.com, you'll turn up Wishnicks and a lot
of Washingtons, but no Wisniks or Wozniaks.

The Daitch-Mokotoff system of soundex used by JewishGen is much
better at catching variations but, even there, I
have run into instances where I had to enter more
than one variation of a surname, in order to turn
up the matches I was seeking.

Given the failure of the current search technologies to totally mechanize the process
of searching for related surnames, in addition
to yielding surnames which may not even belong in
this surname group, such as Washington, the above are not necessarily complete listings,
and the lists are still formidable.

Clearly, researching all the surnames mentioned on this page to find out which are related, using traditional genealogy, would be a huge project.
Fortunately, though, modern technology gives us the additional tool of using DNA testing to locate distant cousins. Once we know whose
DNA matches that of a known family member, we can focus our energies on putting together the paper trail that shows us exactly how we are related.

While non-invasive DNA testing is not something everyone can afford, it is something well within the means of many genealogists, running anywhere from around $100 to about $200 for basic Y DNA testing, depending on the level of testing you choose to have performed. Only men carry the Y-chromosome that can be used for this type of definitive DNA testing, and testing the DNA of one male in
a line of known relatives provides a DNA profile for the complete male line. And no blood testing is required, testing is performed on cells from the surface inside the mouth, obtained by rubbing with a simple swab.

However, if you have Vishnick or Wishnick or other Cherry Brandy surname ancestors but no known direct line male descendants in your family, it is also possible to have autosomal DNA testing performed, which tests the DNA which is mixed and matched from both the mother and father at conception, and where pieces and chunks are passed on to you from all your ancestors. The drawback of this kind of testing is, because people with Jewish ancestry from the same regions in Europe tend to share a lot of autosomal DNA due to intermarriage over the millenia, you can match someone without necessarily knowing who your common ancestor or ancestors were, whether the autosomal DNA segments you share with someone come from your Vishnick or from some other mutual ancestor you may not know about.

However, we now have had autosomal DNA testing performed on several of our Vishnick family members, and autosomal testing could still tell us whether there was more likelihood that our Vishnick families are related.

For all these types of DNA tesing, we recommend using http://www.familytreedna.com for testing as it is a well established lab with a huge database. Discounts are available to individuals whose surname has a surname project associated with it, and our surnames do have associated projects.
Once your results come in, they can be posted anywhere you choose, if you choose to post them publicly, including Ancestry.com.
Whether or not you publish the results, FamilyTreeDNA.com will notify you if you have any matches in their huge database, as well as sending you updates,
and you have the option of joining, for free, additional surname projects.

A soundex search for associated surnames already having
members who have DNA results in the http://www.FamilyTreeDNA.com database, as
of March 9, 2008, turned
up the following potentially related surnames:

Please note that not all of the above surnames which were turned up through soundex searches belong in our surname group.
However, as time has gone on, we have discovered that
names we would not consider to fall in this group actually once had Vishnick or Wishnick as their surname.
So, we have proceeded with caution with regards to removing names from the list.

The most appropriate project for many of our members to join seems to be the Polish project.
While many of our ancestors harken from countries not thought of as Poland, anyone with ancestors from the area now comprised of
Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Latvia, which also includes
the former Galicia, Silesia, and
White Croatia, many of whom referred to themselves as Russians, Hungarians, or Austrians, still often fall in this geographic
area. We suggest you check out the Polish Surname Project website for yourself at
http://www.familytreedna.com/public/polish.
You also may wish to check out the various Jewish surname projects on the same site,
such as the ones at
http://www.familytreedna.com/surname_det.aspx?group=Jewish_Polesie,
and at
http://www.familytreedna.com/public/JewishPolesie,
and the Jewish Ukraine West project, among others.

But many members of this surname group are not of Polish or Jewish ancestry. Which of the families in this surname group are related remains to be seen, so please do consider DNA testing wherever your direct line male ancestors harkened from, and whatever their religious persuasion. There are regional projects for all over the world, and feel free to email us if you have questions about which project is appropriate to join. Testing can be performed without joining a project, but it costs so much less if one joins a project that finding an appropriate geographic or surname project seems well worth the effort.

There are additional labs that perform DNA testing, such as the one used by Ancestry.com and 23andme.com. Plus, more people are requesting
DNA testing from FamilyTreeDNA.com all the time, and everyone is able to post their results and look for matches at http://www.ysearch.org/, no matter what lab they use.
So, we strongly encourage people who do not see their family name in the results list, to order a test anyhow.

Our 37 marker Vishnick DNA results are in, so if you want to take a peek at them, check them out on our DNA Results page. And if you are or have a direct line male Vishnick, Wishnick, or other related surname in your family, please do consider making it a family project, with everyone chipping in together to order a Y DNA test. You might just turn out to be our cousins!

Again, this surname study is an ongoing project, still in it's beginning stages. If you are a member of our family, find any errors,
wish to collaborate efforts, or have more information
you would like to see added to this page,
please click here to contact us!

REFERENCES

Interviews with family members

United States Federal Census Records for 1900,
1910, 1920, and 1930, available online (by subscription and at Public Libraries)
at Ancestry.com
and at Public Libraries through the Heritage Quest Census database.

Social Security Death Index, formerly available online for free at http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com, now available by paid subscription on Ancestry.com's Social Security Death Index or for free from subscribing public libraries.

This page is http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~thecohens/brandysurnames.html